Love Notes
by genuinely maverick
Summary: Up and coming Flautist, Lucy Heartfillia has two goals at the end of her freshman year; become a part of the Magnolia City Symphony Orchestra, and never cross paths with Natsu Dragneel.
1. Introduction

She hates him. No really, she does. She's never met him, doesn't even know what he looks like, but by god she loathes him with all herself.

The directors rave about him. Go on and on during classes, _he's a prodigy, I swear,_ and _he's what every young musician should aspire to be,_ and on and _on_. Lucy has no problem with intensive conversation about up and coming musicians, but on at 8am on a monday, _Natsu_ is about the last thing she wants to talk about.

For her second semester performance she chooses goes back to basics with a Bach piece. Her professor says that she missed the _story_ in the music. Lucy doesn't understand what he means. He makes several more comments, but she tunes them out after she hears the phrase, _one of your peers, Natsu,_ leave his mouth. She decides she hates the professor too.

It's nearing the end of her freshman year and she's settled into life in the conservatory. She has two goals: make it into her city's symphony orchestra, and _never_ cross paths with Natsu Dragneel.

 **An: So here's another Au, music stylez. Stuff will actually start happening in the next chapter.**


	2. Movement I

Sophomore year is harder. Not a day goes by when she doesn't wish she had chosen a less competitive instrument. But all the other instruments were too big or too unconventional for a prim young lady to play. Her father had wanted a hobby for his daughter, not a social statement.

Lucy got saddled with the flute when she was ten. She only really came to love it after her mother died. When her father went too, she decided that was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.

There weren't really many options, anyway. She wasn't a man, so she hadn't been taught about business or any of that. There was no money left for her to live off.

She was a trust fund baby without a trust fund, a socialite who had been disowned by her community, and a new millennial without any marketable skills. The flute is her last hope, and the thought depresses her to no end.

Three weeks into her second year at Magnolia conservatory, she has discovered her third goal : make it into symphony orchestra, never cross paths with Natsu Dragneel, and don't die penniless on the streets.

* * *

She hadn't wanted a roommate. Roommates are messy, and rude, and don't understand staying up all night practicing because the symphony doesn't take second rate flautists and if her professor thinks she's a hack what will the conductors think and why can't she hit that a-flat and fuck Vivaldi. She doesn't need a roommate.

But she gets one. Her name is Juvia, and she doesn't make messes or complain about Vivaldi at three in the morning. She's hardly ever in the room because she's a pianist and there's something about electric keyboards that makes her cringe. They can't fit a grand piano in their dorm.

The only thing particularly bad about the arrangement is Juvia's obsession with a saxophone player named Gray. The girl could go on for hours about him. At first Lucy finds it annoying and a little bit creepy, but she comes to think of it as a character trait. She might even find it a little bit endearing.

* * *

Lucy meets her best friend in her music theory class. Levy McGarden is triple majoring in english, german language and performance french horn. Lucy has never met someone who has prepared herself so well for being jobless. Lucy has never met someone so in love with any of their majors.

The two girls sit together during every lecture. They become friends almost immediately.

* * *

Levy wonders why Lucy doesn't date anyone. Lucy says it's because she doesn't have the time, which is only partially a lie.

Levy is dating a junior guitarist in a jazz ensemble called Fairy Tail. Lucy isn't sure if the name is a joke or not. She thinks it might be rude to ask, though she's not sure why.

She'd met the junior guitarist once before, in world music class. He was covered in piercings and had the thickest hair she'd ever seen. He did not seem like the kind of boy Levy would be interested in, but who is Lucy to judge. She hasn't dated _anyone_ in all of her eighteen years.

* * *

Her professor tells her that her playing lacks 'heart'. Lucy asks, rather sarcastically, when she'd missed the lecture on 'heart', and it turns into a half hour yelling match that ends with her storming out in a wild rage. She leaves her flute behind.

* * *

She meets Levy's boyfriend and Juvia's obsession at the same time. They know each other; they're both in Fairy Tail. They're out to eat together, to socialize and have fun and just be kids. It feels like a long time since they were all just kids.

By the end of the night she finds that Gajeel isn't so scary and Gray isn't so great and her conservatory is full of weirdos but they aren't so bad.

* * *

About fifteen people have asked her what her flute is named. She always just wrinkles her nose and says, "You name your instruments?"

She knows it's not that odd, but she'd never given it much thought. It _seems_ odd to her. Maybe _she's_ the odd one.

* * *

One night Lucy finally asks Juvia what makes her love Gray so much. She wasn't prepared for a whole story, which apparently, is what she would get.

Juvia was severely depressed. She was going to throw herself off a bridge downtown on a rainy thursday night. There was a saxophone player on the bridge she had chosen, so she stopped and listened for a while. What she heard saved her life, or so she'd said.

"What did you hear?" Lucy prompted.

" _Music_ ," Juvia told her.

* * *

Later she asks if Juvia was taking medication, just to be sure. Juvia rolls her eyes and says yes.

* * *

She gets her performance review and is surprised that it's almost all negative comments. _Your technique is good, but there's no musicality,_ her professor had said, _you're still not playing with heart_.

Lucy is furious. 'Heart', again. Heart is bullshit. Heart gets you nowhere. She'd put in _hours_. She'd given _all of herself_. She doesn't need 'heart' - she plays with _blood_.

So why isn't it enough?

* * *

She skips class the next day. She wanders the campus, looking for inspiration, some kind of sign. She ends up in the basement, in the hallways lined with practice rooms. She hears someone on the flute playing the same song she'd chosen for her performance last week. She goes into one of the empty rooms and cries.

She's going to quit. She doesn't have 'heart', apparently. She isn't cut out for this. An hour goes by and she picks herself. She'll talk to her counselor in the morning, she decides.

She's almost to the door when she hears it, the trumpet player in the room right next to her. He's are loud as all hell, playing fast and furious and frenzied. The notes come so quick Lucy can't even figure out what key they're in. The music is everywhere, it's all around her, it's inside her. She sinks to her knees and listens, and listens. If there were ever heart in music, this is what it sounds like. Like a million feelings, all at once.

She doesn't notice when it ends. They trumpet player is gone by the time she snaps out of her trance.

She thinks she understands what Juvia meant about saving a life. She thinks she understands what she meant about _music_.

Lucy goes home and names her flute. She calls it Aquarius. She's not sure why. The whole thing feels silly and liberating.


End file.
